Real Madrid and Barcelona the world’s richest soccer teams

According to this year’s “Football Money League” report from Deloitte, some soccer clubs — such as British teams Arsenal and Chelsea, specifically — are falling down on the job when it comes to pricing their exposure with sponsors. The annual report ranks and analyzes international teams by their revenues, and breaks out sponsorship and advertising income. Read full article

Comments

It's hardly surprising that Barcelona and Real Madrid would be top even if they do play in a poorer and less popular league. As we know the Spanish league is set up in such a way as to fund those two clubs at the expense of competition, so that they can achieve highly in European competition, a point of great national pride of Spain.

Real Madrid and Barcelona receive a disproportionate level of revenue from the league, and are effectively subsidised by the Spanish government through tax exemptions and interest-free loans brokered by the government on their behalf.

Compare that to the English league where the top teams are run as real businesses, paying tax like any other company and only receiving marginally higher television rights revenue than the smaller clubs. English clubs build success not through monetary superiority but through years of coaching stability and building together great teams - not splashing out on great players.

Free spending Real Madrid have spent more on transfer fees in the last year than Manchester United have spent during their entire history, but at the same time Madrid are on their twenty sixth manager since Alex Ferguson joined Manchester United.

You forgot to mention that Real Madrid is one of the most succesful team in Europe both on the domestic league and on the UEFA Champions League with nine total. Spain has more success in the Champions League with 12 trophies between Barcelona(that has three) and Real Madrid(which has the most with nine).i do agree with you that the Spanish Liga is very lopsided and not very Competitive to Real or Barca but those two teams can beat any team in the EPL.

It should be remembered that Real Madrid won six of their nine European cups in the first decade of the competition. In the more than forty years since Real Madrid and Barcelona have each won the competition 'only' three times. In the same period English clubs have won it a combined eleven times, and the same for Italian clubs. So while Real Madrid and Barcelona are both very successful teams their success isn't anything that separates them or Spanish football in general from the rest of Europe.<br /><br /><br /><br />
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Spanish teams haven't found English clubs easy work in the past few years. Barcelona may be the current European Champions after beating Manchester United in the final last year, but they were dominated by a superior Chelsea team in the semi final and only progressed by the skin of their teeth (and more than a couple of woeful decisions from the referee).<br /><br /><br /><br />
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Real Madrid crashed out of Europe last season 5-0 on aggregate to a mediocre Liverpool who this season will struggle to finish within 20 points of the Premier League Champions. After tonight's loss to Lyon, Real make it six consecutive years where they have failed to qualify for the quarter finals.